ithaca

A Tompkins County-based group of investors is nearing completion of an unlikely project -- an industrial-scale wind farm. It would be made up of seven turbines and produce up to 12 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a few thousand homes.

Marguerite Wells is the project manager of Black Oak Wind Farm, which at this point is just a field with a wind measuring tower outside of Ithaca. But, according to Wells, the hard part of getting a wind farm built there is already behind them.

Tompkins County has New York state’s lowest unemployment rate, at less than four percent. In Ithaca, restaurant jobs have grown by seven percent over the last five years. Now a culinary education program at Tompkins Cortland Community College is training workers for the “farm to table” side of the restaurant industry.

Todd McClane directs the new organic farm at Tompkins Cortland Community College. So far it’s only about three acres, but it’s just one part of the college’s new culinary arts degree program. And McClane has big plans for the farm.

A federal loophole is letting some dangerous trucking companies continue to operate in New York state. But U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer is looking to close it by calling for stricter tracking measures that would keep dangerous trucking companies off the road.

“Rather than pay the fine or face repercussions, some (trucking companies) dissolve and reapply for permitting under a different name," Schumer said. "They’re called chameleon carriers. Same owners, same employees, same vehicles, just a different name.”

Hundreds of central New Yorkers have jumped on the solar power bandwagon. Now Solarize Tompkins, the most successful program getting property owners to go solar, is looking ahead to other alternative energy sources for homeowners looking to break from fossil fuels.

Nine out of ten older people in Tompkins County want to stay close by for retirement, but a survey finds a majority want to move to more urban areas, which will put a strain on housing.

Ithaca is a city that already has a tight housing market. The Tompkins County Office for the Aging found it will likely get tighter. The agency conducted a survey of people who recently retired or are about to.

International Climbing Machines (ICM) has its headquarters in a shabby warehouse on the outskirts of Ithaca.

The workshop is hardly bigger than a three-car garage. Metal shelves filled with spare parts line the walls, and in one corner there’s enough space for company president Sam Maggio to show off his device.

The Department of Environmental Conservation begins holding hearings on the rules that would govern hydrofracking this week. New Yorkers have watched closely as fracking has unfolded in Pennsylvania and some are wary that environmental abuses could happen here ¿ while others are eager for the economic boom drilling could bring. The Innovation Trail's Matt Richmond reports.

Libby Foust lives on a quiet gravel road outside Ithaca, in a farmhouse with a 360 degree view of green hills, woods and grain silos.